More on NAGAAA-NCLR settlement

We encourage you to look at Roger Brigham's story on the settlement of the discrimination suit against NAGAAA.

A settlement reached this week in a federal lawsuit over disqualification of a San Francisco team from the 2008 Gay Softball World Series leaves a good deal of soul-searching on the table.

"I think it's a step in the right direction," said Vincent Fuqua, commissioner of the San Francisco Gay Softball League. "More work needs to be done but it's definitely heading in the right direction."

As the Bay Area Reporter reported in a blog post November 28, the National Center for Lesbian Rights announced Monday that a lawsuit resulting from the disqualification of the D2 softball team from the championship game in Kent, Washington in 2008 had been settled with the North American Gay Amateur Athletic Alliance, with NAGAAA agreeing to reinstate the team's second place finish and become more inclusive of bisexual players. The plaintiffs had also been seeking a total of $225,000; NCLR confirmed that money was included in the settlement but said the amount was confidential.

Keep reading HERE.

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And the Outsports blog post has generated some very interesting discussion. We particularly noted the cogent points made by Charlie Sullivan, a member of the Equality Coaching Alliance.

Read the post and the comments thread HERE.

Gay Softball World Series settles lawsuit with bisexual players

Today as reported in the Bay Area Reporter, by Roger Brigham.

The North American Gay Amateur Athletic Alliance (NAGAAA) has settled the remaining parts of a lawsuit with the National Center for Lesbian Rights. The San Francisco softball team that was disqualified for players not being gay in the 2008 tournament in Seattle, WA was restored to their 2nd place title and will receive their award.

Earlier this year NAGAAA ammended their rules to include bisexuals and transgender athletes.

The full article can be read on the Bay Area Reporter web site and blog.

Click HERE for the article.

NAGAAA World Series coming to Washington

In his CheapSeats column in the print edition of the City Paper, DavMcKenna looks at the arrival of the 2013 Gay Softball World Series in Washington (see Destination DC press release HERE), and in particular at the on-going controversy of NAGAAA's policy of discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation:

NAGAAA has long had a rule on its books placing a limit on non-gay players in the Gay Softball World Series. Article 7.05 of the group’s “Instruments of Governance” states: “A maximum of two Heterosexual players are permitted on a GSWS roster.” “Gay” is defined as “a predominant sexual interest in a member of the same gender.”

That rule and definition were in place when the Series was played here in 2003. But Bruce Sprague, who helped organize that event, told me back then that the gay limit was largely ceremonial, and that organizers would take “a player’s word” for his sexuality.

Then, at the 2008 Series in Seattle, organizers forced five players from the second-place San Francisco team to attend a hearing at which they were asked about their sexual orientation. Three of the five said they were bisexual. NAGAAA officials ruled those three players weren’t gay enough, and the team was forced to forfeit.

The men sued NAGAAA for discrimination, and are now being represented by the lawyers from the National Center for Lesbian Rights.

“Gay sports leagues and teams have served a real purpose,” says [former FGG co-president] Brent Minor of Alexandria, who’s been active in the area’s gay sports scene for two decades and now works for Team DC. “They’ve given people confidence, they’ve given people a chance to connect with their community, they’ve given people a place to come out. Some people come out in the office, some come out on the field. But now [since the discrimination case], we’re asking: What makes a ‘gay’ sports team? Is it something only for people who sleep with people of the same orientation? Or is it a welcoming group where everybody can feel safe? It’s a luxury that we’re getting to ask the big questions now.”

And he returns to the question online HERE:



Asked if thought a rule change to allow more non-gays to participate would water down or mean the end of the Gay World Series, [National Center for Lesbian Rights attorney Christopher] Stoll said: " There are many, many gay sports organizations out there, and this is one of only a handful that still have this exclusionary rule. The Gay Games, by far the largest gay sporting event, has no rule against people based on sexual orientation. Gay basketball doesn't have a rule like this. Gay rugby, gay wrestling don't have a rule like this. Any number of sports leagues have found that you don't need to exclude people, and, in fact, that it's counterprouductive to do that. In this day and age?"

Roger Brigham in Compete on the NAGAAA discrimination case

Compete asked Roger Brigham to write on the NAGAAA discrimination case. We wholeheartedly agree with Roger's take:

Let's get something out in the open, shall we? Regardless of what the judge's preliminary ruling was last week or what will be decided in the federal trial in Seattle in August, the North American Gay Amateur Athletic Alliance rule limiti the number of heterosexuals who are allowed to play in the annual Gay Softball World Series is wrong.

Not just wrong: dead-ass wrong. Pig-headedly and antiquatedly wrong. Counter productive and damaging to the advancement of queer rights and acceptance. A relic from the past shackling the rush of progress.

NAGAAA's Rule 7.05, which says a maximum of two heterosexual players may be on a series roster, may have been a necessary device in decades past. Since then, public access laws in states such as Washington, where the 2008 GSWS was held; or California, home of the D2 softball team that was thrown out of that series, were changed to protect against discrimination against, among other things, race, gender or perception of sexual identity or orientation.

In other words, to protect queers like us. No more in the civilized parts of this country may we legally be barred from full social participation in public venues with public groups. We have equal -- not separate -- rights to public access. That's the right to access -- not the right to deny access.

Constitutional niceties still remain to be parsed by the court, which so far is allowing NAGAAA's policy to stand behind the shield of the First Amendment but has ruled that does not necessarily they have the right to discriminate against anyone, including bisexuals or heterosexuals and still is subject to anti-discrimination legislation. But the very existence of the rule prevents much of the diverse social interaction that occurs in most other gays sports (flag football being a notable exception) and that is the most essential dynamic in true acceptance and the eradication of stereotypes and homophobic barriers -- in other words, the very kind of social interaction that helped create the political climate in which those anti-discrimination laws were passed.

Keep reading HERE.

NAGAAA discrimination case to move forward

UPDATE: Read the Wide Rights blog post on this HERE.

From the Seattle Times (h/t to Outsports):

A federal judge has refused to dismiss a lawsuit filed by three men who claim they were disqualified from the 2008 Gay Softball World Series near Seattle for not being gay enough.

The men, members of a San Francisco softball team, say they were questioned in front of a room full of strangers about their sexual preferences after a protest was lodged alleging their team had violated a rule that limited to two the number of heterosexuals on any team.

The three men, who are bisexual, say the questioning was intrusive and allege in the lawsuit that the event's sponsor and its rule violate state anti-discrimination laws.

However, U.S. District Judge John Coughenour found that the North American Gay Amateur Athletic Association, which sponsors the yearly event, can keep its rule. The First Amendment guarantees of freedom of expression and association allow organizations like the softball association to limit membership to individuals with like-minded beliefs in order to promote a broader agenda — in this case, ensuring gay athletes have a safe and accepting community in which to play, he ruled.

The judge ruled Tuesday on a series of motions brought by both sides in anticipation of an Aug. 1 trial.

The suit was backed by the National Center for Lesbian Rights in San Francisco, which had framed it as a push for bisexual rights. It contended the rule discriminated against bisexuals by not including them in the definition of "gay."

Coughenour rejected that contention in the broader sense by not issuing an injunction against the rule, but said "treatment of bisexuals remains of central importance to this case" and that the association "could still be liable for its actions" under the Washington Laws Against Discrimination for actions at the 2008 games.

To that end, the judge ruled that the association operated as a "public accommodation" by inviting public attendance, charging a fee and providing a service, and therefore must comply with the state's anti-discrimination laws.

And the judge said the First Amendment protections go only so far, pointing to the U.S. Supreme Court's recent decision in the case of the Westboro Baptist Church in Kansas, whose members spread virulent anti-gay messages at the funerals of U.S. soldiers.


"The court concluded that the First Amendment does not protect all speech," the judge wrote. "Whether or not Defendant's treatment of Plaintiffs at the protest hearing is deserving of First Amendment Protection remains to be seen."

The plaintiffs — Stephen Apilado, LaRon Charles and John Russ — were members of the team D5, which made it to the finals of the Gay World Series in 2008.

During the game, the manager of another team filed a protest under the rule that limits the number of non-gay players. The men contend they were brought, one at a time, into a room containing as many as 25 people and questioned about their sexual preferences.

The panel members then voted on whether they men were gay or "non-gay." Several ballots were held, and the men said the process was humiliating.

Seattle attorney Michael Reiss, who represented the softball association, said he was pleased that the court allowed it to keep its rule and recognized its right to chose its members. He said the organization would "vigorously dispute" the men's version of what occurred in the protest meeting.

Suzanne Thomas, an attorney representing the men and the National Center for Lesbian Rights, praised the judge for finding the association is subject to the state anti-discrimination laws, and said she looked forward to trying the remainder of the case.

"No one should have to go through what they experienced," she said.

She said that, as a result of this lawsuit, the association has recently changed its rules to include bisexual and transgender people.

Roger Brigham on the NAGAAA discrimination case

In his Bay Area Reporter column this week, Roger Brigham writes eloquently about a legal case that will soon be heard by a Federal judge, and a moral case that has gone on far too long. The Federation of Gay Games took a position as soon as this case became public last year that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is unacceptable, whether the victims are presumed to be gay or presumed to be straight.

An extract from the column:

Death to the -isms and the ghettos and the phobias that separate us! We advance gay liberation through the mechanisms of legal protections giving us the right to be who we are wherever we want to be whenever we want to be – the most fundamental and modest of the red-white-and-blue American dreams – and through daily personal interactions with the mainstream that show we are different but we are all of one.

Which is why the North American Gay Amateur Athletic Alliance is wrong to restrict the number of straights who may be on teams playing in the annual Gay Softball World Series.

Dead wrong. Practically, politically, culturally, socially, morally wrong. Whether they are also legally and constitutionally wrong a federal trial in Seattle in June shall decide. A shame if the guardians of the sport allow things to go that far.

A lawsuit, filed a year ago on behalf of three San Francisco softball players after an ad hoc on-the-spot hearing determined that they were "ungay" and therefore their D2 team would have to forfeit its victories in the 2008 Seattle Gay Softball World Series, is scheduled to be tried in June in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, with Seattle District Court Judge John C. Coughenour presiding.

And another:

Some media have referred to the men as "heterosexual." Some have referred to them as "bisexual." The reality is the plaintiffs have never publicized their sexual orientations and the press who jump the gun on this trample on the dignity of people's right to define their orientations on their own terms – or to eschew labels entirely.

What the three men have done, with their gay teammates in a gay league through weeks and months and years of practice, is show publicly their solidarity and support for the queer community and the right for queers to use public playing fields: a right won in places such as California and Washington by generations of queers who lived locked-out, shut-in lives.

Read in full HERE.

Chicago's legacy as a Gay Games host

A message from Kevin Boyer:

We often talk about the powerful impact the Gay Games has on individuals, but the impact on the host city is almost always discussed in economic terms. Now 4 years beyond my experiencing helping to manage the 2006 Gay Games, my perspective on "legacy" has evolved a bit.

One of the things that drove the Federation of Gay Games to feel comfortable about selecting Chicago as the host of the 2006 Gay Games, even knowing that we would have an abbreviated planning period, was the strength and vibrancy of our local LGBT sports, cultural and business community. In many ways, our city's LGBT community had progressed at a pace similar to that of the Gay Games movement. As in most American cities, the 1980s were marked by the fight against HIV/AIDS and the government inaction and public antipathy the helped the disease ravage our community in that decade.

But the 1990s were a decade when LGBT Chicagoans successfully fought for greater measures of equality, inclusion, and integration into the fabric of the city. We were finally able to engage more fully in a broader set of goals. Sports and cultural organizations grew and flourished, community organizations matured and expanded, and we were no longer seen as a angry special interest group that got attention only on Pride Sunday. We became, and now are, a full fledged part of the city at all levels.

By 2004, the community was more than ready to plan, fund and execute a successful Gay Games, a more forward-looking celebration of everything that makes us unique and yet the same as everyone else. The history books now show that from 2004 to 2006, Chicago not only put on an organizationally - and financially - successful Gay Games, but did it at the same time as the city was also raising funds for a $20 million community center that broke ground in 2005 and opened in 2007. It was a tough time for the Gay Games movement, and Chicagoans of all flavors stepped up in ways that few outside of the leadership circle will ever really understand.

When we talked about the ultimate impact of the Gay Games to our city, we often talked about how we would enhance the credibility of our community as an economic engine, and increase the capacity of our community to do even more. Since 2004, I think there has been a palpable change in our community. Whereas before a fairly small group of community leaders helped guide much of our direction - a successful strategy when we struggled for our lives and for basic equality - now the community is able to take on projects that represent the full breadth of our lives. The legacy of the Gay Games in Chicago feels like Chicago's LGBT community recognizing what was already there. We can reach beyond what we thought was our grasp, and we can do a lot more than just one or two things at a time. I hope that Cologne's LGBT community is now beginning to feel the same level of empowerment and that Cleveland will experience the same liberation.

In 2010, we hosted the North American Gay Volleyball Championships, using the successful Gay Games volleyball venue - Navy Pier. And in 2011, the Gay Softball World Series will come to Chicago. The world's largest LGBT sporting event outside the Gay Games, the GSWS will bring as many as 2500 softball players to the Windy City (or, more accurately, to the three high-quality suburban ballparks that will host the 100+ teams.) Read that last "aside" again - yes, suburban ballparks where we will be welcome not only because of our money, but because even in Chicago's suburbs the LGBT community is becoming an integrated part of everything. Remember Crystal Lake and the drama around rowing during the 2006 Gay Games? We already fought that battle, and won. Big time.

The GSWS organizing committee includes many Gay Games sports veterans, and some new folks who have already proven themselves to be great at their work. They'll need several hundred volunteers and something tells me that out of the many thousands in Chicago impacted by the 2006 Gay Games, they won't have any trouble finding people to happily step forward.

If you want to support the 2011 Gay Softball World Series in Chicago, visit the Facebook page.

Kevin Boyer